PHOTO 1: Dave Crawford from Amarillo TX said he ALWAYS wanted to make the fishing report after visiting us numerous times. Well, Dave…you got it! He got this early morning fat wahoo off Cerralvo Island with the purple Rapala still dangling from it’s mouth! Although fishing started off really stingy, the wahoo sure burned a few reels off the south end of the island. PICKY FISHING ALL WEEK GETS BETTER AS WEEK GOES ON BUT MARLIN AND WAHOO PICK UP SLACK!
La Paz – Las Arenas Fishing Report for July 8, 2007
PHOTO 2: Scott Kendall (L) and Dave “Splash” Lopez from Canoga Park CA have been with us many times and always do well. Scott is holding a nice red snapper while Dave posts up a nice amberjack. They two got a number of different species including wahoo. For Las Arenas, fishing was still mixed with both topwater pelagic species as well as inshore species such as what Scott and Dave are holding.
PHOTO 3: Don’t mess with the baby! Actually, Dave Lopez shot this great photo of a “baby” whaleshark passing under the panga. This guy was only about 25-30 feet long. Docile and gentle these guys can get as big as 50 feet and will often let you swim with them. Don’t worry…they eat plankton but are, in fact, a true shark!
PHOTO 4: He lost 50 pounds (CONGRATULATIONS cuz he wasn’t even fat to begin with!) and got himself a dorado! Dave Berthold, our amigo from the East Coast turned 40 years old, lost 50 pounds; started kickboxing and came down (never wore a shirt for the whole week so he could pose for fotos!) and got himself this nice dorado. He was intent on getting a marlin which eluded him, but he sure did a number on some big dorado all week. He also has a great sense of humor…right Dave? Dave? He’s gonna beat me up after reading this. Boom! Kick to the head. Dorado got a little lockjawed this week. They were harder to come by. They are out there, but did not always want to eat. Larger ones ate lures trolled through the fishing grounds.
PHOTO 5: The East Coast has been well represented these past few weeks down here. Doug Hollinger from Trenton, NJ, was on his first trip down and hung this nice pair of dorado fishing near Espiritu Santo Island.
PHOTO 6: Our New Mexico buddy, Larry Daniel told me, “The more I fish here, the more I realize I have so much more to learn!” One of the nicest guys and easiet guys to have down here fishing, Larry is holding a barred pargo (pargo mulatto). These guys are still up around the rocks and can get pretty large. Great eating and tough fighters on the first few runs when they try to get back into their caves.
PHOTO 7: Rusty Koch, Morristown, NJ has his hands full with a sweet bull dorado. That’s Cerralvo Island in the background. Most of the dorado have been caught in the gap between Cerralvo and Espiritu Santo Island. Some days you’ll see a ton of these guys around and they won’t hit a thing. Other days, they literally eat the paint off the boat. I think we need our water temps to kick up just a few degrees more and it’s gonna bust wide open!
PHOTO 8: No, that is not me even tho’ it looks like my legs, but this is what happens when good people go bad! We had about 100 people every day this week and so we decided to toss a big taco feed party at the Sunset Bar on the pier. Great time.
PHOTO 9 : These taco feeds are a blast. Folks get into it…as you can tell ! That’s Sheila, Andrea, Yvette and Heather getting into it. Some folks left too early and missed the bar dancing and conga lines!
PHOTO 10: Nelson and Julie should just forget their day jobs and do this professionally up on the bar!
PHOTO 11: Keep folks happy by feeding them!
PHOTO 12: James Newman is from Monterey CA and is headed to the FBI academy in Virginia soon. He uses his power of investigative reasoning to try to figure out what this sign is saying. A “Boob” crossing? Dolly Parton Museum? Nuclear power plant?
PHOTO 2: Scott Kendall (L) and Dave “Splash” Lopez from Canoga Park CA have been with us many times and always do well. Scott is holding a nice red snapper while Dave posts up a nice amberjack. They two got a number of different species including wahoo. For Las Arenas, fishing was still mixed with both topwater pelagic species as well as inshore species such as what Scott and Dave are holding.
PHOTO 3: Don’t mess with the baby! Actually, Dave Lopez shot this great photo of a “baby” whaleshark passing under the panga. This guy was only about 25-30 feet long. Docile and gentle these guys can get as big as 50 feet and will often let you swim with them. Don’t worry…they eat plankton but are, in fact, a true shark!
PHOTO 4: He lost 50 pounds (CONGRATULATIONS cuz he wasn’t even fat to begin with!) and got himself a dorado! Dave Berthold, our amigo from the East Coast turned 40 years old, lost 50 pounds; started kickboxing and came down (never wore a shirt for the whole week so he could pose for fotos!) and got himself this nice dorado. He was intent on getting a marlin which eluded him, but he sure did a number on some big dorado all week. He also has a great sense of humor…right Dave? Dave? He’s gonna beat me up after reading this. Boom! Kick to the head. Dorado got a little lockjawed this week. They were harder to come by. They are out there, but did not always want to eat. Larger ones ate lures trolled through the fishing grounds.
PHOTO 5: The East Coast has been well represented these past few weeks down here. Doug Hollinger from Trenton, NJ, was on his first trip down and hung this nice pair of dorado fishing near Espiritu Santo Island.
PHOTO 6: Our New Mexico buddy, Larry Daniel told me, “The more I fish here, the more I realize I have so much more to learn!” One of the nicest guys and easiet guys to have down here fishing, Larry is holding a barred pargo (pargo mulatto). These guys are still up around the rocks and can get pretty large. Great eating and tough fighters on the first few runs when they try to get back into their caves.
PHOTO 7: Rusty Koch, Morristown, NJ has his hands full with a sweet bull dorado. That’s Cerralvo Island in the background. Most of the dorado have been caught in the gap between Cerralvo and Espiritu Santo Island. Some days you’ll see a ton of these guys around and they won’t hit a thing. Other days, they literally eat the paint off the boat. I think we need our water temps to kick up just a few degrees more and it’s gonna bust wide open!
PHOTO 8: No, that is not me even tho’ it looks like my legs, but this is what happens when good people go bad! We had about 100 people every day this week and so we decided to toss a big taco feed party at the Sunset Bar on the pier. Great time. 
PHOTO 9 : These taco feeds are a blast. Folks get into it…as you can tell ! That’s Sheila, Andrea, Yvette and Heather getting into it. Some folks left too early and missed the bar dancing and conga lines!
PHOTO 10: Nelson and Julie should just forget their day jobs and do this professionally up on the bar! 
PHOTO 11: Keep folks happy by feeding them!
PHOTO 12: James Newman is from Monterey CA and is headed to the FBI academy in Virginia soon. He uses his power of investigative reasoning to try to figure out what this sign is saying. A “Boob” crossing? Dolly Parton Museum? Nuclear power plant?
THE FISHING REPORT
I won’t lie to you. It wasn’t our most shining fishing week for sure! It was pretty scratchy. Basically long periods of nothing punctuated by flurries of everything from pargo to marlin and wahoo to tuna, but the dry period in between could be quite a drag.
Water temps dropped 4 degrees earlier in the week and the fish simply went lockjaw. EVERYONE SAW FISH! Imagine schools of marlin and dorado that could care less what you threw at them. Imagine dorado and wahoo turning up their noises at baits tossed right in front of them or schools of marlin diving down when a mackerel was in front of them as if the mackerel had some kind of stink on it! Just weird!
But…that’s not to say we didn’t catch fish! On the contrary, everyone still went home with fish. You might have some down times, but there were still fish that were willing to bite and guys still got marlin, sails, wahoo, dorado, pargo, amberjack and other species. It was just hard to put your finger on the bite and certainly, you had to be either lucky or have your “A” game with you.
I would see the fish boxes with one or two fish in them and the disappointed look on the angler who would dejectedly tell me they had a “slow day.” Then, I would talk to the captain who would tell me that the angler who had a “slow day” also popped three fish off and had on a marlin or two, but farmed them! That’s actually a very GOOD day, but a bad CATCHING day! Hookups count!
If you farm fish or miss a bite, that could be your one and only shot so you have to be chilly and take your ops when you get them! You could come up on that one giant school of dorado that’s willing to chew, but if you lose ONE fish…it takes the school with it and it’s SEEE-yaaaaaa!!!! There’s goes the school. There goes the bite for ALL the boats. It’s not the captain’s fault. It’s not the bad water or bad bait. It’s pilot error!!!
But…that’s how it is…
La Paz waters were still green most of the week, so the dorado weren’t really interested, but let me tell ya…the marlin sure seemed to want to go! Boats were getting at least one marlin hook up a day or more! This was a great week to take a shot at a marlin if you were fishing on the La Paz side of town. Stripers were going about 100 pounds and there were also some blues hooked as well.
On the Las Arenas side, there were two stories. If you fished inside, you had a good shot at amberjack, pargo, cabrilla, jack crevalle and roosters. You could do that all day long OR…
You could go outside of hit the high spots and take a shot at wahoo or tuna or hit the right buoy and whack dorado. Understand this…there’s 80 or so buoys out there. It’s a matter of luck. Not everyone holds dorado. Much like kelp paddy fishing back in S.California. If you hit 6 of the wrong ones, you could go stink. If you hit the RIGHT one, it could make your day.
Toward the end of the week, fishing did pick up especially for our Las Arenas boats taking a number of different species and hopefully encouraging that we’ll get outta this bit of slump!
LAST THING…
If you’re flying in Delta and want your luggage to arrive with you…
1. Do NOT be the last in line. Be the first in line. Delta is leaving luggage behind on every trip both coming and going.
2. Put a label on all your luggage.
3. Do not pack your medicines, cash or important papers in your luggage. Carry it on with you!
That’s my story!
Jonathan
Jonathan Roldan’s
Tailhunter International
Phone: (626) 333-3355
FAX: (626) 333-0115
E-Mail: Riplipboy@aol.com
U.S. Office: 3319 White Cloud Dr., Suite A, Hacienda Hts. CA 91745
Mexico Office: Carr. a Pichilingue KM 5, Numero 205, La Paz, Baja Cal Sur, Mexico
“When your life finally flashes before your eyes, you will have only moments to regret all the things in life you never had the courage to try.”
Tailhunter Fish Report 
Leave a comment